It is my teaching philosophy that, because media theory allows us to understand the images and technologies we interact with every day, it is an essential tool to help us be more critical, reflexive, and conscientious members of society.
Learning media studies prepares students to solve different types of problems in creative and socially engaged ways. Operating on this premise, I devise my courses so students develop both critical skills to analyze the media and technologies they interact with and creative practices to intervene in the world around them.
I have designed and taught courses on media theory, digital technologies, media criticism, media and identity, globalization, and Latin American / Latinx cultures. In these courses, I develop assignments and in-class activities that are interactive and eclectic in hopes that they will interrupt the expectations that students have about courses on cultural studies or media theory. I’ll collect and share these so they may serve as evolving, collaborative resources for other educators.
Dubbing Scholarship is an activity that gets students to think through and summarize an academic argument before delivering it as a character in a movie.
Practicing Supply Chains is a dynamic time-controlled in-class activity about contemporary supply chains and the obfuscation of information in digital networks.
The Netflix Dossier is a final assignment that allows students to build on theories of media translation and apply these to a real-world scenario: critically analyzing creative decisions in Netflix original programming for specific countries.
This is [a Nation] is a close-reading small group activity of international adaptations of “This is America” that gets students thinking about symbolic representation, dominant and resistant national publics, and music videos as global media.
Instead of a final paper, the Global Media Studies non-TEDx Talk is a final project that allows students to focus on a central issue from the class, summarize what they have learned, and articulate its importance for an audience outside the classroom.
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juan llamas-rodriguez 